


Mirror

by MeansToOffend (goodmorning)



Series: Pick Me Up [24]
Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: 2017-2018 NHL Season, Boston Bruins, Gay Chicken, M/M, Pick-Up Lines, young dudes make poor life choices
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-15
Updated: 2018-05-15
Packaged: 2019-05-07 12:42:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14671343
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goodmorning/pseuds/MeansToOffend
Summary: "Patrice is too old for this shit."





	Mirror

Patrice is too old for this shit. By the time it gets around to him it’s unclear who started it, though he can narrow it down to Jake (the W is bizarre) or Matt and Charlie (college students love to make drunk ideas reality). Either way, figuring out who’s to blame is, currently, the less pressing issue.

“Why,” asks Patrice, drawing on his near-infinite store of patience, “is your hand on my thigh, Bjorky?”

Anders blushes. “There’s this game…”

“No, don’t tell me: the boys bet that you wouldn’t play this game with an alternate, and you chose me because you thought Marchy would be better at it than you.”

Anders can only nod, shamefaced.

“Right,” says Patrice. Making a guess, he lifts Anders’ hand from his thigh and kisses it, watching him turn redder. “Go tell them you tried - and I don’t want to hear about any more bets like that.” Anders downright _flees_.

Later, because the rookies still haven’t learned not to have conversations in the hallway with the weird acoustics, Patrice overhears a fragment of conversation.

“I picked Bergy, he won, I don’t want to talk about it,” Anders is saying. Patrice misses the rest, because he has sticks to cut - hockey takes precedence.

\--

He didn’t actually expect not to be involved in their nonsense again. It’s still irritating when Sean plunks down next to him on the plane and carefully strokes Patrice’s knee, staring fixedly at the seat in front of him. Patrice puts a hand on Sean’s face, turns it carefully towards him.

“Buy me dinner first,” he says, stroking Sean’s cheek.

“Sorry,” is all Sean manages before he, too, flees.

\--

When Danton tries to play footsie with him at team dinner, Patrice has had enough. “Heinie,” he says, moving his socked foot up his thigh til he flinches, “after dinner, bring everybody involved in this up to my room.” He doesn’t mean for it to be an order; he tries not to give them.

But it seems like it’s worth it, because Danton doesn’t argue. He just nods, helplessly, and goes back to his soup.

\--

There are clearly far too many young guys on the roster, because six of them file into his room, looking equally guilty. Jake shows up just as the last one is inside, not guilty in the slightest.

“So,” Patrice begins, when they’ve all settled in, “what exactly is this game you keep getting me into?”

“You mean you don’t _know_?” Sean asks, staring.

“It’s called gay chicken,” Charlie says, and at least he has the decency to look embarrassed.

“I wanted to rename it cock-” Jake starts, but Patrice glares him into silence.

The rules, it turns out, are as he’d guessed. He sighs. “I’m sure you all know this is a bad idea, and you’re not such idiots that you can’t figure out why you shouldn’t be sexually harassing people. I’m not going to tell you to stop, because I know you won’t. But if any of you bring Marchy into this, I will find out, and you won’t like the consequences.” He pauses, making sure this sinks in. “Now get out.”

He counts them as they leave, all six, throwing one more shot after them: “And no bets!” Turning, he runs into someone.

_Bother._ He hadn’t counted Jake. But then he realises it’s only Matt, which makes it easy. “I will call your mother.” 

Matt quickly excuses himself, catching up with the rest.

\--

It’s easy now for Patrice to tell who they aren’t harassing with their casual ‘bro-it’s-just-a-game’ handsiness. Z, Backy, and Tuuks they don’t bother for obvious reasons, Brad because _they had better not_ , but he’s not sure why they’re leaving Pasta alone. So he asks, before he can convince himself to mind his own business.

“I tell them I like both. They find it less fun.”

“Ah,” says Patrice, with perfect understanding. He wonders, vaguely, if Pasta told them the truth. He won’t put him in an awkward position by asking, though.

Pasta answers anyway. “Yes,” he says, with a grin that’s half teasing, half worry.

“Ah,” Patrice says again. It feels insufficient. “Me, too,” he offers, finally.

“Thank you,” says Pasta, smiling for real, and pats him on the shoulder.

\--

It’s obvious to Patrice that Jake will be the first to recover from his lecture, but the time he chooses is less than convenient. Patrice is trying to finish his pre-practice checklist, and his blades need sharpening. He does not need to deal with dumb rookies.

So when Jake pauses, whispers, “I hope you know how hot you are,” into his ear before moving on, Patrice comes - very slightly - unhinged. 

He sneaks up behind Jake, holding him. Pitching his voice low, he murmurs, “You’re not bad yourself,” kissing the corner of Jake’s jaw, trailing a hand down his chest.

“Okay, okay,” Jake says, pulling away with a small frown.

“You started it,” replies Patrice, heading to the skate sharpener.

\--

By contrast, Brandon’s timing is impeccable. They’re in a dark parking lot in a small-market city, and neither of them has anywhere to be anytime soon.

But he’s awful at this, just staring into Patrice’s eyes like they hold the secret to fixing all his bad decisions. Finally, Patrice gets tired of waiting; he leans up and kisses him. 

Eyes widening, Brandon steps back.

“You’re too tall,” Patrice teases. “I’ll have a crick in my neck now.” And he goes inside.

\--

The last one is Charlie, relatively subtle. They’re the last two left after practice. Patrice doesn’t hear him approaching, but there’s a thumb stroking his wrist before their fingers are entwined, and it’s almost sweet. He raises their joined hands, presses a kiss to them.

Charlie flushes, and then his free hand is on Patrice’s face and they’re kissing. It’s a good kiss, too, better when Patrice nips at Charlie’s lower lip and his mouth sighs open.

This isn’t the first time he’s sat right here, listening to a teammate’s ever-more-ragged breaths as he kisses them slowly and lazily into arousal, but it is the first in a while. He hadn’t realised he’d missed it. But he forgets the nostalgia when Charlie makes a noise between a squeak and a moan, and stops to ask if he’s alright.

Charlie nods. “Can we… go back to your place?”

“Is this for the game, or is it something you actually want?” Patrice asks, watching him carefully.

“I want it,” Charlie says, decisive, and Patrice nods.

Patrice drives. “You know, most people experiment in college.”

“I mean, there were a lot of bro-jobs. I just…” Charlie blushes. “I never had feelings for a teammate before.”

Patrice nearly forgets which pedal is the brake. “Um. Charlie, you’re very sweet, but-”

Charlie mumbles something from the passenger seat.

“What?”

“I said it’s not you, it’s Pasta!” he gets out, and goes redder than Patrice thought was possible. He stops, parks the car.

“Are you telling me,” he asks, drawing again on his overtaxed patience, “you started that ridiculous game and _this_ ,” gesturing between them, “just so you could pretend you don’t have feelings?”

“You don’t have feelings for me!” Charlie indignantly points out, but it’s not a no. “Where are we going?” he asks, as they pull back into traffic.

“Pasta’s house,” Patrice says. “If he says no we can still have pity sex after, if you want. Not before.”

“But what if it ruins the team dynamic?” 

“You weren’t worried about that when you kissed me,” Patrice points out. There’s silence the rest of the way.

Patrice drives home by himself.

\--

There’s a pretty sharp drop-off in incidents after that.

\--

“Don’t I owe you dinner?” Brad asks after one of their rare matinee games. Actually, Brad owes him more than a month’s worth of dinners, but Patrice isn’t complaining now. Free food and good company are, after all, worth it.

It starts to feel slightly odd when Brad pulls his chair out for him. When Brad’s foot meeting his under the table elicits a “Sorry, Bergy,” Patrice is sure: those absolute morons have said something. He’d hoped their fear of him or a handsy Brad would stop them.

Patrice’s own fear, though, is that Brad will ask for something he doesn’t actually want. Patrice has been pretending not to be stupid about him for so long, taking advantage of this almost sounds like a good idea. Saying yes would make him hate himself, just a little. 

Patrice always says yes to Brad.

They chat through dinner about Charlie and Pasta, and Patrice almost stops worrying. Then they get up.

“Want to come watch some porn on my 50-inch mirror?” Brad asks. Patrice smiles, a knot in his gut, and takes his hand.

Brad really does have a mirror, and Patrice catches glimpses of himself spread out on the bed as Brad tries to undress him. Patrice, better with buttons, got Brad’s shirt off a while ago, and keeps finding himself staring at the reflection of his shoulder muscles shifting and tensing. He wants to feel them under his hands.

When his shirt is finally off, cool air caressing his skin, Patrice thinks he should say something. He means to ask Brad what he’d like, offer to blow him, anything to keep this going as long as possible. What he says instead, profanity strange on his tongue, is, “Fuck me.”

He blushes. Brad blushes. Then he darts off. But Patrice’s heart doesn’t have time to sink before Brad’s back, well-used bottle of lube in hand.

Brad kisses him, messily, the cold tip of his nose brushing Patrice’s cheek. “How do you want me?” he asks.

“Like this.” Patrice undresses, lines his hips up by the edge of the bed. He’s not sure what it says about him that he picks a spot where he can still see the mirror.

While Patrice thinks, Brad acts. “Ready?” he asks, waggling a lubey finger.

“Oh,” says Patrice, briefly surprised at Brad’s apparent competence. “Yes,” he adds, at Brad’s raised eyebrow, and then he’s sighing, watching Brad finger him. He’s very good, not too fast, too slow, just the right amount of lube. He reads what Patrice wants better than anyone he can remember.

Patrice watches all of it - Brad’s intense focus, his hips shifting to meet him, the moment Brad withdraws his fingers, smooths a kiss across his inner thigh, catches him watching, smiles.

“Ready?” he asks again.

“Fuck me already,” Patrice says. Brad smirks, slicks up his cock, and obliges. Patrice can’t help but watch as Brad slowly sinks into him; as he stops, hips flush against his ass, and starts a slow grind; as his dick slowly starts to reappear. It’s hypnotic watching Brad find a rhythm, until he pokes Patrice’s hip with a free hand. Patrice glances up.

After that he can’t look anywhere but Brad’s face, biting his own lip white and red. “Brad,” Patrice says, watches his eyes darken, feels his hips stutter. Brad gets a hand on his dick, and his own hips buck.

They stay like that, Brad picking up speed in increments, jerking him off just out of time, Patrice clutching the bedsheets, trying not to fall apart when Brad’s dick hits him just _there_. He’s so, so close, about to say as much, when Brad presses in a little deeper, chokes out, “Patrice,” and comes. It’s more than enough to tip him over too.

Brad pulls out slowly, collapsing on the bed beside him. They lay there breathing until Patrice excuses himself to the bathroom. He cleans up. He refuses to panic.

He’s had flings with teammates before, good ones; he can’t pretend he doesn’t want this to be more.

Brad is dropping a tissue into a bin when Patrice comes out. “Hey, come here,” he says, smiling. Patrice smiles back, sitting on the bed. 

Brad kisses his nose. “I’m not misreading this, right?” he asks, like he already knows the answer.

“You could never,” Patrice tells him, and laces their fingers together.

**Author's Note:**

> \- PSA: It really is sexual harassment, maybe don't do it! Obviously it's sort of questionably fine-ish in terms of consent if everyone involved agrees to play, but maybe don't involve people who don't!  
> \- (This story may be the result of me finding Boston questionable at times. I wrote it a thousand years before the licking story blew up or it would be that instead.)  
> \- Most people are first names except all the Davids because I wasn't even going to try to figure out the nicknames for some of these dudes.  
> \- There are way too many young Americans on this team, I swear.  
> \- Did they tell Brad anything or not? This is a question I cannot answer.  
> \- A line that was never going to be in this: "I hope Pasta wrapped his dick better than he tapes his stick."


End file.
